


Beginnings

by devil_wears_winchester (Joyd)



Series: 30 Days of Bucky Barnes [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky has a soft spot for runts, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Memory Loss, Prosthesis, memory recovery, the Winter Soldier doesn't know how to deal with small children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:44:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1578968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joyd/pseuds/devil_wears_winchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"He leaves the museum with more questions than answers and stands on the steps outside for a long moment, staring off in thought before being jerked back to reality by a small tug on his sleeve."</i><br/> </p><p>Even with no memory to speak of and nothing more than a half-assed plan to fix that, the Winter Soldier and Bucky Barnes have one important thing in common: An incurable weakness for the runt of the litter and a complete lack of tolerance for the bullies who hurt them.</p><p>That doesn't necessarily mean the Soldier knows what to do when faced with one, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beginnings

He begins to remember not long after dragging the Mission out of the Potomac. Remembers a similar situation, with their roles reversed, to watching him fall from the aircraft. Stutters and skips, but remembers seeing His hand reached out for him, remembers falling and the world getting further away. The sound of Him calling out that name, “Bucky”, but feels lost; that’s not _his_ name, is it?

After that, he starts planning. His handlers are dead or incarcerated, and for the first time he can remember -not that that means anything- he has _choices_. He could find what remains of HYDRA, go back as his programming would have him do, but he won’t, not ever again. Not with memories of Him hovering just out of reach of conscious thought. Instead, he sheds his weapons and the leathers that have defined him as The Soldier for so long, and tosses them into the same waters that almost took the lives of both himself and the Mission. They can have that life, because he's going to make a new one, just for himself. 

A forgotten hoodie found under a bus stop bench and a hat saved out of a restaurant’s fake flower boxes hide his face from anyone who’d be looking for him, and then he sets off in search of answers, for better or worse. 

\- 

He doesn’t recognize the man in the exhibit who wears his face. Sees the beginnings of himself in the tight line of his mouth and the dark circles under his eyes, the hollow look shown in some video clips but always hidden from the Mission - Captain Rogers. Even then, 70 years past and nothing but a picture, James Buchanan Barnes seems more alive than the Soldier ever has. 

There are children and their parents all over the place, the occasional veteran mixed in amongst their numbers, but they fade into background noise as he moves slowly about the exhibit. He can’t remember more than fragments, like he’s hearing snatches of conversations from across the room; hears Dum Dum’s complaints about sleeping on the ground mixed with the laughter of two women off to his right, can make out Morita’s laughter as if from a distance as two kids argue over a souvenir shield. 

He leaves the museum with more questions than answers and stands on the steps outside for a long moment, staring off in thought before being jerked back to reality by a small tug on his sleeve. It’s the wounds from yesterday’s fight that keep him from reacting violently, the pained throbs of his previously dislocated shoulder -no matter how many times it’s happened, it’s never any less painful- stopping the motion of his arm to jerk away or go for a weapon that isn’t there. 

Looking down -down, down, farther than expected- he finds a little girl looking up at him, a smudge of what looks like ice cream on her cheek, cotton candy blue -what does that mean…?- compared to the bright shade of wide-eyes staring at him in awe. It makes his stomach flip oddly, and he almost shuffles his feet in a strange, physical reaction to whatever new emotion this is. 

She must have taken his silence for acknowledgement, because she turns her attention his left and the shiny metal of the Weapon. Before he can hide it in his pocket, the odd flipping sensation growing and making him think he may be ill, she looks back up at him with a tiny smile -so tiny, aren’t kids supposed to have wide grins to show off missing teeth?-, lifting her own right hand to wiggle delicate, seemingly plastic fingers at him. 

“We match, mister.” Her voice is as soft as her smile is tiny, like she expects to be hurt for saying so, and suddenly the horrible flipping is gone, a white hot feeling almost like anger rising in its place - almost, but hotter, hotter like chemical fires reaching up for him as he shakily makes his way across a collapsing metal beam. She is so _small_ , what reason can she have to sound so scared of voicing her thoughts when that is what children do? He wants to break whatever - _whoever_ \- has done that to her. Before he can act on the not-anger, she fills the silence again, voice slightly stronger in the face of his inaction, “I like yours better, though, it looks really strong.” 

She looks to the Weapon again, seemingly studying the tight clench of his fist and the segmented articulation. The whirring of gears and slightly damaged circuitry is loud in his ears as he uncurls his fingers, slowly -so slowly, so as not to startle either of them- reaching out so she can see it better. Her fascination is so much _nicer_ than the stares of adults or the “interest” of HYDRA’s scientists, curious in an innocent, _amazed_ way as opposed to the pity of adults and clinical gaze of HYDRA. 

She reaches out in return, pausing to look up at him for permission before closing her own hands around it, both so very small compared to the Weapon, the tap of plastic against metal a contrast to the buzz of circuits and electricity. He can just barely feel her grip, so light and careful in her curiosity as she turns it this way and that to study it. She looks up at him again, a small grin on her face in answer to his own blank expression, before she looks down again, towards her toes this time, as if afraid again. 

He doesn't want her to be afraid, not this tiny girl whose voice is too soft and her posture too scared for someone so young. He hasn't spoken at all since she appeared, since yelling at Captain Rogers actually, but she isn't, so he’ll have to try. 

“What is it…?” His voice is like gravel underfoot, a sharp contrast to her soft whispers, but at least it hadn't cracked like it always did when he and Steve were that small. 

What? 

Before he can think on that, she looks back up at him, biting her lip and focusing on his cheek rather than his eyes, “Where…? How far…?” 

She’s lost all the strength she’d managed to collect, voice even softer than at the start and her shoulders hunched like she expects a blow. The Soldier has never, in any memory -his or Bucky Barnes’- been so angry. If he ever finds out who did this to her, he’ll _destroy them_. 

In place of acting on his murderous thoughts, however, he reaches up with his flesh hand, tapping two fingers against the connecting plating at his chest. The faint sound of his fingers hitting metal seems answer enough as her eyes go wide again, mouth opening in a small “o” before she smiles again and looks down at their hands. She plays with their fingers, seemingly embarrassed as she fidgets. 

“Mine goes to my elbow. My aunt says it could be worse, so its not so bad I guess.” She is talking to their hands, but the tension in her shoulders and back is gone, so he will take it to mean that she isn’t afraid to share such information -reading children is so much harder than reading adults, what could be anger or fear in an adult can just as easily be shyness or playfulness in children. Before she can go on, another voice interrupts, causing her to look to her left and him to turn as well, ready to tuck this tiny, innocent girl behind him if this proves to be the person who has instilled such fear in her. 

“Ashley!” A short woman with red hair is jogging toward them, a relieved look on her face even as her eyes focus suspiciously on the Soldier, “I’ve been looking everywhere! You can’t just wander off!” 

The little girl -Ashley- looks down at their hands again, squeezing his fingers as if for reassurance -he curls them around hers lightly, unsure why it seems the right thing to do, “Sorry, Auntie. Look though, we match!” 

She holds the Weapon up to show the woman -he can see the faintest resemblance around their eyes and the fullness of their cheeks- as she stops just beside them, her nearness making his hands itch for a weapon of some sort. He turns slightly toward her instead, compromising where he never would have needed to before so as to not leave his back exposed to her. 

Her stern look melts slightly at the sight of their prosthetics, an unexpected understanding in place of the pity he was expecting -hates, doesn't want, doesn't _need_ -, “I see. Quite fancy, too. I’m not surprised it caught your eye.” 

The lit- _Ashley_ -names are important, and he'll never deny another person their's as long as he lives-, looks down again, this time seemingly embarrassed even as she peaks up at him shyly through her bangs, “I want to make better prosthetics for people, like yours so we can hold things better and stuff.” 

Her fascination makes more sense now, though he doesn’t know what to say in response. A new memory surfaces, not from WWII or Bucky’s childhood, but just as fragmented and static-y. Words overheard while the Soldier was observing a target, perhaps, or from the scientists as they worked on the Weapon. 

“Neural interfacing.” His voice is a rough croak this time, barely there and some of it wasn’t even audible, just his lips moving. Judging by her confused expression, Ashley hadn’t quite caught it either, so he clears his throat and tries again, “Neural interfacing. Gives more precise control and some feeling, like pressure or temperature, to the prosthetic.” 

That was more than he’d said since the fight on the plane, and his voice almost gave out again, but her eyes and mouth were open in that “o” again, so he counts it as something of a win. Her aunt seems just as impressed, and is looking at him in interest instead of wariness now, and he can’t decide which is worse. He doesn’t _want_ them interested in him, because then they’ll remember him, instead of just the Weapon. 

“Is that what yours has?” Her tone is so interested, but he just nods in answer, unable to bring himself to speak again in the face of her awe, “That’s so cool! I can’t feel anything with mine, so I didn’t know they had that already! I bet I could make it even better!” 

She turns to babble at her aunt, but the world is going distant again and the Soldier decides it’s time to go. When they turn to address him again not a minute later, he’s already gone. 

\- 

Months later, after getting his memories back in more than just scattered, disjointed fragments and turning up on Steve’s doorstep with some half-formed excuses -that Steve didn’t even let him get out before hugging him so tight he felt his ribs bow from the force-, he’s watching the beginnings of his new arm come to life from Tony’s schematics when he remembers a little girl with a plastic prosthetic who flinched at sudden movements and braced for every hit. 

It doesn’t take long to find her medical records with Natasha’s skills, and even less time to find her father’s arrest records. And compared to that, it barely takes any time at all for him to be found strung up by his ankles from the 4th floor railing of his penitentiary, tourniquets of choke wire around both upper arms and the left side of his face so badly bruised it looks like he’d been hit by a truck -Bucky would have to mention the weakened motor control to Tony; he could have hit a lot harder with the Weapon. 

And if a little girl and her aunt are given a grand tour of Stark Industry’s new prosthetics R&D floor in Avenger’s Tower soon after, that is purely coincidental.

**Author's Note:**

> I read a fic (maybe two?) a while ago where Bucky/the Soldier referred to his arm as the Weapon, and I really liked that disassociation between him and it, rather than just referring to it as his arm. If you know which fic/author that was, lemme know so I can give credit where it's due.
> 
> And if there were any spelling/grammar mistakes I missed, lemme know about those, too, so I can fix them.


End file.
